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Sunday, 1 June 2014

Yes platforming ex-SNP MP Bill Walker?

Bill Walker, the disgraced ex SNP MSP took to the stage in the Kirkintilloch Miners. He shuffled his papers and nodded in the right places as feminist SSP Councillor, Emma Daitop spoke about her determination to ensure women have much more of a voice in a newly independent Scotland. After Ms Daitop came the radical republican speaker, Rob McFjord, who spoke about a Scotland that was fair and honest, and agreed with Councillor Daitop's call for more female representation in our civic society.Lastly came Walker; a man whose name had become synonymous with misogyny, abuse and for causing deep problems within his political party, the SNP. He spoke briefly about his hounding by the Murdoch press and how a cabal led by nasty women had been out to oust him from his party. And then came what everyone in the hall had come to hear; a speech mimicking those shipyard workers and steel workers and miners would have heard all of those pre-Thatcherite years ago from staunch socialists who had cut their teeth in the poverty of the Clydeside backstreets and educated by their unions. A speech of such passion, and volume, ears bled and babies combusted. A speech the Reverend Ian Paisley could have easily delivered from his pulpit if he had have been a socialist as well as a misogynist. The crowd rose from their seats and applauded wildly as Walker mopped his brow and his pal wiped the spittle coated camera lense, already uploading the triumphant return of Scotland's greatest orator after serving one year of his three year sentence.There was no space for questions at the end, and the one lone voice who shouted,"Should feminist SSP politicians and Radical Republican's really platform this woman abuser?" was answered by a smiling Emma, "Anything for a Yes, comrade... And he is a great speaker!"...OK. This isn't entirely true. The SSP do not have a Councillor Emma Daitop (I made it up). The SSP would not platform the woman abuser Walker. Rob McFjord does not exist. And Walker only got a sentence of a year. Tommy Sheridan got three years.